lce pack —

Sworn in

He’s number one

Supporters of a second sheet of
ice unveiled their latest plan last.
week.\NEWS A5 :

+

| Two dozen local residents _
received their Canadian citizen-
ship May 16.\COMMUNITY B1

Local youth bowler Phillip Durand
is the best Bantam in
Canada.\SPORTS C1

WEDNESDAY
MAY-24,°1995

Businesses

GRIDLOCK.

Thal’s what local commuters
can expect for six weeks starting
June 12 when local bridges go to
one-way How only during resur-
facing of the new bridge,

Highways ministry officials an-
nounced last Thursday that when
the new (Dudley Little) bridge is
reduced to one-lane for the
$750,000 resurfacing, both it and
the old Skecna River bridge will
be changed to one-way traffic
only,

' All westbound traffic will be
directed over the old bridge. All
eastbound waffic will take the
new bridge,

_ All westbound heavy truck traf-
Gc, R¥s, and most commercial
vehicles — which can’t take the

significant traffic pattern
change’’.

Keith Ave. business owners like
Kermodei Trading’s ~° Glen

Saunders call ita disaster.

He said he doesn’t understand
why the ministry couldn’t keep
the system used during the recent
one-lane closure of the bridge to
lay B.C. Tel conduit, ,

“There can be a five-minute
wait over the bridges now, but
it’s nottoo bad.” ||

Business owners on the north
side of Keith — who will have no

pan one-wa
old bridge — will wait inahold- |
ing area on the Thornhill side and
will be flagged through a section
at a time across the new bridge.

The highways ministry press
release describes the plan as ‘‘a

traffic Dow on their side of the
Street — were stunned by the
news.

“You're kidding,’’ said Irly
Bird’s Rod Cousins. ‘‘This is a
joke right?’’ ;

“We'll be killed by this,?? said
Campbell Stewart, of A & W’s
restaurant/drive-through. ‘‘I sup-
pose jobs like this have to be
done. But we'll be seriously hurt
by this.”” ;

“This is typical for the high-
ways dept,’ added River In-
dustries’ Rick Kirkwood, *‘When
it comes to tourism time that's
when they. shut the highway
down and dig everything up.”

Highways ministry public in-
formation officer Jane Stead said
the work has to be done now to

anything to go by.

the overflow,

work week.

Lakelse supervisor Tracy Walbauer said all sites
in the Furlong Bay and Kleanza Creek camp-
grounds had been filled by Friday and the few left
at Exchamsiks were expected to be taken up by

As a mark of some people's determination to
ensure a weckend in the fresh air, he pointed to a
Kitimat visitor who had come out Wednesday
evening, booked a site right through the weekend, -
then headed back to put in the two days left in the .

Visitors swamp campgrounds

PARKS BRANCH staff are expecting another
busy year at northwest campgrounds,

And they’re going to be right if last weekend,
the triditional opening of camping season, was

Walbauer said visitors to Furlong Bay will find
a few changes including the replacement of the
previous 15 firewood corrals by four central wood
lots and the installation of new, bear proof gar-
bage containers. All 156 sites have also been
resurfaced with crush. —

One thing that hasn't changed is the cost of ©
staying the night — it’s still $14.50 including
GST. That’s $5 more than Kleanza and Ex-
chamsiks but at Furlong you've. got the op-
portunity to take a hot shower in one of the three
loilet-shower buildings in the park.

Walbauer reminded ‘visitors, the park mules are -
also the same: all dogs must be on a leash, alcohol
can only be consumed on your camp site and 11

~ pet to 7 an, is still "quiet time’.

get the right temperature for
pouring the concrete deck.

The project consists of grinding
off the 20-year-old surface, clean-
ing the corroded re-bar and then
pouring the new deck.

Stead said the decision to go to
4 one-way traffic on both bridges
— instead of just flagging traffic
each way on the new bridge alone
— was based on analysis of traf-
fic counts and traffic flaw pat-

“It’s still going to be ugly,
there’s no question about it,” she
said. ‘‘But it scemed like this was
the best solution,”’

Highways ministry regional
traffic engineer David Edgar says
a much longer stretch of the
bridge will be taken up by con-

Credit system could be |
answer for small mills. _

By MALCOLM BAXTER
VALUE-ADDED mills will have
a mare secure and long term tim-

ber supply undes'd new system to” §

be announced this summer, says
Forest minister Andrew Petter.

Petter acknowledged such mills
have a major problem under the
existing system, that of trying to
make long term plans based on a
series of short term timber
licences,

Companies such as Terrace Pre-
Cut usually obtain their wood
supply by bidding on what are
called 16.1, or value-added tim-
ber sales offered under the Small
Business program, If successful
in their bid, they make a deal with
a larger, conventional mill under
which the major sawmill cuts the
timber and gives the value-added
mill an equivalent volume of.
lumber. .

However, the amount of timber
involved in each sale is small, the
term of the licence short - gener-
ally two or three years - and there
is no guarantee the value-added
mill will be successful in its bid.

A further problem, Petter ack-
nowledged, is the number of
companies competing for these
sales is increasing while the
amount of wood available
through the program remains
Static. ‘“That’s the dilemma with

Wade works won- _

WHEN WADE Flaherty final-
ly hangs up his skates, he might
look to firefighting as his next
career. ,

It would be a natural the way
the San Jose goalie doused the
Flames in Friday night’s Stanley
Cup playoff game..

in a stellar performance, the
Terrace Minor Hockey product
guided his team to victory in the
deciding game of its: opening
Stanley Cup playoff round.

Tied 4-4. after’ regulation,
Game 7 wasn’t decided until 1:54
ofdouble overtime... ©,

By rights, it should-have been
over long before that and it should
have been Calgary celebrating.

-Would have. been: bit- for

- Flaherty, nn

With the Shark. defence:too
often is disarray, Calgary turned
the San Jose goal into a shooting
gallery during the fitst overtime. ©

».. Twice “Flame ‘Reichel: got.
- . Plahetty denied him. A perfectly -. face
timed poke check robbed’
of the chance t6 be the game hefo,”

loose on. breakaway

struction and equipment than has
been the case with the laying of

B.C. Tel conduit,

“It would mean much greater
delays,'’ he said, because of the
time it takes traffic to clear the
toute before opposing traffic can
cross.

That would make.mayhem out
of the Thorahiil four-way stop,
whereas with this plan, at least all
westbound traffic that would have
stacked up there will be diverted
over the old bridge,

“Tf we get into it and find there
are lots of problems, we'll look at
ways lo solve it,’ Stead added. .

Chamber of commerce . presi-
dent John Evans noted: that al-
though the change means -west-
bound tourists ‘will see the

Andrew Petter
the program,”’ he said.
The only avenues available at
the moment to increase the
amount of Smail Business timber
are the five per cent ‘‘takeback??
which takes place whenever a
large licence is transferred from

one company to another or

through = an across-the-board
reduction in tree farm and forest
licence volumes as occurred in
the late "80s, —

That will change when the pro-
vince adopts a credit systém pro-.
posed fast year by the Forest Sec-
tor Strategy committee, a system

Wade Flaherty
And, proving when you’re hot the
hockey Gods tend to smile on you,
a Zalapski shot destined for the top
corner was blacked by the shaft of
-Flaherty's stick; : :

al the Culgary goal.
—

-
a

“ dorié. better...

75¢ PLUS 5¢ GST
VOL:8NO.G |

ybridges pitt

downtown, rather than bypass it,
it also means those tourists will
have a hard time getting to the
chamber’s tourist information
centre on Keith.

Highways officials also note
that the scheduled closure .—
June 12 to July 21 — is depen-
dent on dry weather, ;

‘We are looking at six weeks
lo complete the project as long as
the weather cooperates,” said
highways ministry area manager
Randy Penner,

Rain could “impact the com-
pletion date of the project’? be-
cause ij could delay the pouring
of the concrete deck. , a

Flag people ate to be stationed
at the new bridge 24 hours a day
for the duration of the work,

Petter anticipated would give 5

small value-added ‘operations the
leverage needed to acquire a

" guaranteed "wood supply over the °

long term.. - . i
Although the details have yet to
be finalized, Petter said the idea

is value-added mills are given

credits for a given volume of
lumber. Major sawmills would be
required to supply the smaller op-
erations with lumber, at 9 compe-

titive price, and when they do so. |

the credits are transferred to the
major. . oe

“The transfer of credits'is evi-
dence they have met their com-
mitment,” he explained, addiig
the system would avoid having to
take standing timber away from

licencees and, at the same time,

divert wood that is now sent over-
seas into local-value-added mills.
Faced with a choice between an

arbitrary reduction and the credits |

proposal, Petter said the large
companies had opted for the Jat-
ter. The system will be voluntary

to begin with but if that fails‘to

achieve the desired effect, . the
minister said appropriate legisla-
tion would beintroduced, =

Petter has now received a con-
sultant’s report and assessment of
the plan and said he’ expected to

be making an announcement -

within the next two months;

Little wonder “the Sharks .

mobbed their keeper’ after Ray
Whitney’s deflection: gave: Sani

&

Jose victory, vee

}i was the second consecutive».

start — and vicjory — for back up
Flaherty, his only other appearance :

in the series coming in game three > *
when he was thrown in io save an”

already lost cause. es
Friday’s performance had Don
Cherry holding the Terracite up as
an example to young players eve-
rywhere, Although he had'spent
much of the series on the berich,
Cherry said ‘it was. obvious
Flaherty had not sulked but studied
what was happening out on the ice, ’
learned from it and put it to good

use, He might have added that :

nerves of steel help as well.”

And Flaherty will need ‘them |

in the next round against Detroit,

tagged by many as favoutites'to  ~
winital 2
‘But, whatever the outcorte:of
_> that series, h¢-can salt list Friday’s
Same away in-his mental, sotap-
book knowing no-one could have

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